Archive magazine has set up a mailing list for the most exclusive club of RISC OS users: Omega owners. The list was created after Archive editor Paul Beverley started forwarding information via email to readers with Omegas, and decided to organise this effort into a mailing list.

"I've invited David Atkins to join the group, but I've not heard from him," Paul told us last night. "Having said that, I gather Microdigital are on holiday until Monday. However, Frank Kraaij of Microdigital Europe has joined the group and has already made a couple of very helpful comments about technical issues."

The new Archive list is open to Omega-owning subscribers only, but if you're particularly eager, contact Paul.

Update at 08:23 24/8/2004
Paul Beverley's asked for us add these points, as he writes, "Having seen the comments about the 'exclusivity' of Omega-on-Line, please can you tell your readers that if anyone really wants to read about, for example, which KVMs work on Omega, they only have to ask me and I'll let them join the list. Secondly, I've realised that my comment about [David Atkins] sounded criticial. Would you please apologise for me and say that it wasn't meant to be."

The Archive Omega mailing list, which has 25 subscribers to date and is growing daily, isn't supposed to be secret at all, and is "a service for Omega owners, especially as several of them were saying that they were unable to access the message boards on the Microdigital website", according to Paul.

If I correctly recall the historical days of Acorn Computers, there weren't any "Clicky Clubs" exclusive from the mainstream of RISC OS computers as we seem to think these days. Is it really such a god idea to have RISC OS so divided just to get the choice of features etc?
I really do hope I'm wrong, but all I know from experiences is that when you get many group divisions in something (like we have on RISC OS in recent years) you are sure to have problems.
Regards, Steve

I am on several lists and find that being able to opt in or out one way to control the volume and relevance of email.

Some groups are only really active when someone has a query or problem. Some like the Iyonix list are almost constant with queries and possible solutions. Unless you were a user of that machine I feel that most would become bored as the subjects would be of little relevance.

If the list was open to anyone interested it would go some way to being less exclusive ( if that was the intent in the first palce?!)

Looks to me like another attempt from Paul Berverly to make an educated guess on the number of Omega owners. Unfourtunately it won't help much, because Omega owners seem to mostly be the type of users, who use a phone to get support, many have not even requested access to the Owners Club.

JGZimmerle>"Looks to me like another attempt from Paul Berverly to make an educated guess on the number of Omega owners"

Perhaps the more pertinent point is why is there an effort to obscure how many Omega users there are ? It is a *reasonable* question to try gauge this number. Developers (for example) would probably like to know is it worth their while developing stuff for Omega's specific features if there are too few potential customers/users to justify it. Potential buyers might also like to know - as the more fellow users there are the better "user community" support they might get.

Now if all developers, potential buyers and other interested parties get is glib replies like "Omega users used the phone" (quite) that does *nothing* to improve the public perception of that product. It leads to disquieting questions and people being wary of Omega - surely the last thing MD (or their ardent supports) should be doing.

JGZimmerle>"Looks to me like another attempt from Paul Berverly to make an educated guess on the number of Omega owners"

Paul Beverley has already asked that question so he already has such information. I can't see Paul being the sort of guy to waste time on such a elaborate scheme. Ironically, a user group offering support is likely to increase the attraction of MDs offerings.

This month, he has an MD update in archive magazine. Maybe he's frustrated with the lack of information and trying to do something constructive.